


Do-Gooder

by Firelight_and_Rain



Series: Icewind Dale [3]
Category: The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, Gen, M/M, Modern AU, small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7623967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firelight_and_Rain/pseuds/Firelight_and_Rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drizzt tries to be a role model.</p><p>It doesn't quite work out, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do-Gooder

Drizzt expected something terrible to befall him when Mayor Silverymoon marched into his house and dropped a manila folder onto his kitchen table. Not that Alustriel, the wonderful woman, would intentionally make his life hard, but she’d taken him at face value when he’d said that he really was at her service (whichever time that had been), and since he had no political ties and his relations were a serious liability, that mostly meant dealing with Misters Entreri and Baenre before Bruenor took it on himself to and gave everyone, but mostly the police, an unnecessary headache. He plopped a pancake onto his plate while staring warily at the manila folder, like it might try to bite him.  


“I need your help,” Alustriel said.  


“What with?”  


“Something you might actually like, this time.”  


“Do you need me to show some visitors around the Vale?” Drizzt asked, hopefully.  


Alustriel composed her expression, and Drizzt braced himself for hearing that he had to go fish someone out of a cabin where they’d holed up proclaiming doomsday, hoarding illegal items or hiding from their wife. All three had happened before. Alustriel said that his unconventional use of Zak’s mentoring was an asset. Drizzt didn’t think there was such a thing as a conventional use of his father’s mentoring.  


“It’s community service.”  


“Please tell me that it isn’t Entreri again.”  


Alustriel grimaced prettily. “It isn’t _just_ Mister Entreri. There’s a young woman who’s been assigned community service for … unwise life decisions, and I know that this would be a rare opportunity to provide her some support.”  


“Are you sure that I’m the role model she’d want,” Drizzt mused, looking around his monkish abode, where he lived alone.  


Alustriel smiled, luminous and enchanting. He knew that she knew what she was doing with that. “Oh, maybe not the role model she wants, but the role model she needs.”  


“Do you really want to encourage my reclusive, eccentric ways?”  


Alustriel gave a throaty laugh. “Catch the next Bond flick with me?” He had caught the Batman reference, but refused to acknowledge it.  


“Of course.”  


When she closed the door, Drizzt looked at the folder and made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon. “Entreri?” he whined.

~ 

Drizzt figured that, her company notwithstanding, it was unfair to hold a grudge against the kid - one Dahlia Sin’afae - and so, in a gesture of kindness, went in his Official Car to give her a ride when it came to the first day of her impending community service.  


He pulled up to a stop outside the courthouse.  


There were two people slouching on the steps like they were imitating each other. It made the young woman look like a teenager, and the middle-aged man look like a grumpy scarecrow; Drizzt had the sinking feeling that these would be very accurate first impressions, though he already knew what Artemis Entreri was like, Mielikki help him. He closed the car door behind himself and crossed his arms disapprovingly.  


The girl raised an eyebrow at him. It was his uniform, probably. She was wearing a daring outfit of red and black. Drizzt could see that Alustriel had been stretching the truth a little when she’d called her a kid.  


Entreri wore a scowl, a leather jacket, and the general air of a world-weary viper stuck in a two-horse town (and Drizzt had floated a theory past Regis that when Entreri was unusually well-behaved the reason was the cold air disagreeing with his cold-blooded nature, even though he knew the real reason had more to do with something that started with ‘J’ and ended with ‘that shameless mercenary peacock’, if the speaker was eloquent and feeling charitable). So, more or less like usual, then.  


The girl, one Dahlia Sin’afae, looked between the two, and then strutted towards Drizzt. “Ranger Do’Urden.”  


“Yes.”  


Drizzt couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that Entreri harrumphed at him.  


“Apparently your job is to babysit me now,” she said with a sugary, sardonic, commiserating, suggestive smile.  


“My job is to make sure both you and Entreri do your jobs to the State’s satisfaction.” As much as Alustriel might not have liked it, Drizzt was not going to refer to Artemis with the formal “Mister Entreri”, because then Entreri might try to cut him, and that would cause an incident.  


Dahlia looked like she’d stepped in something unpleasant. “Alright.”

~ 

“Are you going to lock us in?” Dahlia asked, looking around the back of the truck with interest.  


“No. This isn’t a police car. Also no.”  


Entreri was slouching back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest.

 ~

The community service that the State had elected was to repair fences bounding some of the outlying farms. It was something that Drizzt would probably have been doing himself, otherwise. Predictably Entreri grouched - why did anyone even live here? Dahlia took the boots and coat she was offered, and worked with surprising aplomb. They were all exhausted and spattered in mud by the end of that day’s shift (at least Jarlaxle wasn’t there to start a mud fight, Drizzt figured), and predictably Drizzt was the happiest about it, veritably glowing with the satisfaction of a good deed done well.  


The ride back to town proper was kind of like the tail end of a miserable family vacation, until they almost drove by a sporty sort of car half into a ditch. Drizzt sighed heavily and parked along the road next to the other car. Entreri swore. Dahlia shifted around, curious, to get a better look.  


Drizzt got out and went to stand beside the sports car. The car’s front window rolled down, and another drow, this one in a fancy hat, grinned up at him. (Wearing his hat while driving, even if it seemed to exceed the space of the car’s interior, was the least of this citizen’s quirks - provided he was even actually, legally a citizen, Drizzt wasn’t too sure about that). “Why, Ranger Do’Urden,” he chirped. “Fancy seeing you here.”  


“Jarlaxle,” Drizzt responded dully, if civilly enough. “What are you doing out here?”  


“Ah - hmm. I needed to speak to Artemis.” Jarlaxle Baenre was the only person on or under the face of the planet Drizzt knew of who dared to refer to Entreri by his first name, but at least he stopped short of referring to him as ‘Artie’. Or ‘Art’.  


In public, at least.  


“And you couldn’t have waited?”  


Jarlaxle tried to look sheepish and innocent, which resoundingly did not work, because Drizzt knew him. “I wasn’t sure that Artemis would be in town where I’d look for him, and so I thought to myself - I could go look for him! Somewhere else!”  


“How did you even find us here?”  


“I asked around.”  


“Of course you did.”  


Jarlaxle gave Drizzt his best rendition of the ‘puppy eyes’ expression, which really was not designed for a species with bright red eyes.  


Drizzt sighed quietly through his teeth. “Alright, we can give you a lift back to town, but if Entreri tries to murder you I’m not stopping him.”  


Jarlaxle beamed. “Brilliant! Just let me call a towing company about this car.” He whipped out a sleek cell phone, and Drizzt rolled his eyes, trudging back to his truck.

~ 

Dahlia looked pleased at the arrival of a new distraction, and Drizzt assiduously ignored everyone else in the truck, and Entreri wore an expression that Drizzt couldn’t begin to decipher while Jarlaxle aggressively radiated cheer and slid in beside Entreri.  


“Enjoyed ourselves?” Jarlaxle asked.  


“Certainly,” Entreri replied. “And you could have enjoyed yourself right alongside us if you ever stuck around after your fun at the expense of everyone who can arrest me, and all their friends.”  


“I think he’s done so often enough.” Drizzt said this because he’d had, on multiple occasions, to keep track of them both on outings such as this one, and whether or not Jarlaxle deserved to be punished (he suspected that as a rule of thumb the answer was yes, he did) it was magnitudes worse to have to deal with them together, at the same time.  


“No such thing,” Entreri said darkly.  


“What did you two even do?” Dahlia asked.  


“Well, that’s rather a long story,” Jarlaxle started, not sounding the least put-out about “having” to tell it.

~ 

It was getting on past evening when Drizzt dropped them all off at the Courthouse, thoroughly relieved to be done with his babysitting duties, and looking forward to a late evening watching Longmire with Guenhwyvar in his lap.  


He still followed the assorted troublemakers out, because something had occurred to him. Entreri was looking at Dahlia like it had occurred to him, too. (Jarlaxle waited unquestioned in Entreri’s general vicinity; whatever their disagreement had been about, it was apparently now forgotten).  


Dahlia stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and looked between the two of them. “What?” she challenged.  


“Do you have any place to stay?” Drizzt asked.  


“Of course. All young adults these days couch surf.”  


“Well. Stay safe.”  


Dahlia frowned at him, which, considering him and considering her, could be for any number of reasons. Entreri was still giving her that considering look.  


“What?” she asked him next. “Do you have a couch to offer?”  


He shrugged. “One of Jarlaxle’s friends would probably be using it otherwise.”  


Drizzt very much suspected that that was a lie, though Mielikki forbid Entreri ever show kindness.  


He also suspected that this wasn’t what Alustriel had meant by his duty to help keep Dahlia on the straight and narrow.  


On the other hand, he didn’t exactly want to offer his couch. He had it on good authority that he was a terrible roommate, and he suspected that Dahlia would put up more of a fuss about his lifestyle than Wulfgar had. (And, when it came down to things that he wasn’t going to admit, he was about as territorial about his personal space as his half-feral black cat). And it wasn’t like Entreri, who was as ace as he was (and hadn’t that been an interesting summer), was going to take advantage of the young woman. Jarlaxle had his standards. Regarding autonomy, and age (probably not much else) - so Drizzt had gathered from his earlier interactions with him, during his own emancipation. Not that Dahlia’s addition would make their already turbulent household any more pacific.  


Well, that settled that, Drizzt thought with a sense of satisfaction. She was their problem now.  


(Though they all knew that Drizzt, the helpless Boy Scout, would somehow end up involved again - for better or worse. Probably worse).

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know ...
> 
> I had to create /something/ for these ships of mine, which I wallow in agony over alone and uncomforted by fandom. Also, Dahlia deserves better.
> 
> This continuity has no greater plot to it, unfortunately, but I'd totally write more for these nerds if prompted.


End file.
